Creed

Making a living can be deadly work

Act 2; You can't run from everything

25

AUG/17

Talann sat on the edge of her bed, her body and mind numb as she stared at a wall. She had to let the cleaners go months ago, and it was fairly evident by the chaotic way datapads and empty bottles were scattered around.

Despite the… distance she felt in her mind; that fog that permeated everything she did, there was something left of cognition there. Talann could hear her children and the promise that she was missing their growing up, or the good people she had come to know in her life, or the joy she felt in knowing she was helping pull the foundation through; but with that came the realization of what she had squandered. That her life was a living hell, and that she was responsible for the destruction of her family's foundation and legacy. She hated that all the good work her father and mother did was so casually swept away because she herself had the audacity to sing a few songs. Thousands of the most vulernable people on Naboo were saved, and an online search of "Mistrunner foundation" invariably leads to celebrity gossip or a stupid song from a lifetime ago.

She felt her hands move like some sort of automation, and the distant sweet taste of brandy trickled down her throat, warming her and bringing the fog back.

And now Kyt was back. Talann been clean for a few years, doing her best to resist and help guide the foundation, but when the debts began to pile up; it got harder and harder to resist the lure of glitterstim. In hindsight, the invitation to meet Starbright Industries as a potential funder for the foundation had been a mistake; it just gave Stitchface a way to push his drugs on her and now she was falling rapidly into his pocket.

Intimacy and drugs quickly led to threats and his play for control of the foundation and it's industrial park. She extracted herself from the situation as quickly as she could of course, but by then he'd gotten too close.

She knew that she'd rather the foundation burn than fall to the Hutt's. The only good thing her family name was worth would not be used as a tool to lure more people back into a life of crime. If the Hutt's wanted to take Naboo, they would do so themselves, without her name on the death warrant.

So really the only question was whether it would be the death of her past, or the death of her future. Give up the foundation to the Hutt's and slander her family's legacy while throwing everyone they'd saved to the wolves; or throw her safety and that of her three children to the mercy of criminals.

The hopelessness of it all finished the bottle in her hand, as well as the next one. It was almost a welcome distraction when she read her messages, and realized that Kyt had been working with the Hutt's behind her back. She should've known that the timing of her appearance was just a little too convenient…

Talann clumsily grabbed her things and launched herself out the door to find her old friend and lover. It was time for a heart to heart.